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2018 Power Rankings-Week 7
Introduction Is this really the most competitive season ever? So far this season, teams coming into the week in 10th place are undefeated. Let that sink in. The 10th place team is 5-0. This is the first time in eight years of LOC that every team has at least two wins and two losses through six weeks. The two game separation between first and last is the smallest ever through this point in a season. But maybe the best indicator of the competition level is the scoring differential between the league’s top scorer (Sweet Dee) vs. the league’s lowest scorer (Pain Train). Let’s take a look at the historical data. Not only is scoring close, it's borderline insanity. Only 19.31 points a week between the best scoring franchise and the worst scoring franchise. Compare that to a year ago, when our worst team was being ourscored by our best team at a clip of 66.69 points every week. The margin is so close that Pain Train could have a huge game in week 7 and realistically move from being the worst team to the best team. That's just fucking incredible. Speaking of top scoring Sweet Dee, what does being the scoring champ through mid-October get you in the LOC? Every single team that has led the league in scoring through six weeks has reached the semifinals. Four of the seven teams have reached the Glory Bowl. Three (all TSB) have won. Bust Watch Let's take a look at how our first round picks are doing. Been a while. Gurley is performing like a true first, while Bell is not living up to his 2nd overall pick. Sweet Dee owns two of the top four highest scoring first round picks, including the top scoring player in the league. Keeper Corner At Papa Posse's request, I tallied up how everyone's keepers are doing through the first half of the season. Sweet Dee is absolutely killing it in this catagory as well, so it's no wonder she is putting together a decent scoring season. The top scoring keeper, Andrew Luck, coupled with the top scoring first round pick, Todd Gurley, and add in a 1st round WR to boot. Wow. RIPDab's total is low because Edelman missed four games with the suspension, while Pain Train's is low because he lost McKinnon in the pre-season. Browns4You, who kept Gordon, might be seeing an uptick in production in the coming weeks, while Papa is at the top of the group in terms of non-QB keepers. The Rankings This week the NBA kicked off a new season, and with it came the 2018 hashtags for all the NBA teams. In the spirit of trying to #MakeTheRankingsGreatAgain, I decided to come up with the hashtags for all the LOC teams. So next time your fans want to tweet about your squad, these are the hashtags they should use: 1(5). Paddock 9 (4-2) #OpenPaddock9 P9 is in first place for the first time ever, but with a great power ranking comes great responsibility. A week seven matchup with 4-2 Papa could determine week 8's first place team. Paddock 9's hashtag is an obvious #OpenPaddock9, which is the team slogan and origin. You unleash the dino, you better be wearing your high heels! Stupid fucking movie. 2(2). Sweet Dee (3-3) #Sweetness RIPDab came up with this awesome hashtag for Sweet Dee, an homage to the great Walter Payton. I did a little digging, and apparently the nickname "Sweetness" was given to Walter to mock him, at first, for his high-pitched voice. It quickly became a badge of honor, with one reporter once saying "He runs so sweet that it gives me cavities just watching him." This fits, because I've often found myself saying about Sweet Dee's teams "This squad is so rotten that it gives me cavities just writing about them." But this season, it's oh, so sweet for Dee. 3(1). RIPDab (2-4) ##RIPDab RIPDab technically also came up with this hashtag, since his name is supposed to come with the # before it already. All he had to do to create this hashtag was add another hashtag in front of it. It's very meta. But enough about World Peace, what are we to make of RIPDab, who just had their first game under 200 all season? With Freeman now on IR, Coleman gets a boost, and he'll have Ingram with two extra weeks of practice this week. This could be the week they turn it all around. 4(4). Garoppoblow Me (3-3) #SuckIt This hashtag was a Paddock 9 creation. I would have gone with the more obvious #BlowMe, but #SuckIt has a nice ring to it (cock ring, amiright?). Speaking of blowing it, that's almost what happened in week six until a miracle happened on Monday night yet again. This is now an absolutely ridiculous fifth game in a row decided on MNF. Week 2, it was the dumpster fire performance from Russell Wilson that prevented the comeback win. In week 3, it was the Fitzmagic Finale that won it on Ryan's last completion of the night. In week 4, GBM came all the way back to take the lead before Mahomes sealed it for KC and Paddock 9. In Sweet Dee's win, GBM's core keepers fell way below expectations on MNF. And then this week we had Alfred Morris. Incredible. 5(7). The Shotti Bunch (3-3) #RingBearer He might be taller than Frodo, but he carries the rings to rule them all. The Shotti Bunch has been so good for so long that we aren't quite able to process what's happened to them so far this season. I think we all expect them to go on that 7 game win streak at some point. Maybe that point is now. They scored 249 points this week and looks like Dalvin Cook is back in the mix. 6(3). Papa's Posse (4-2) #WhosYourDaddy What a ridiculous way to lose for the former first place Papa. Alfred Morris gets NOTHING, NADA, ZIP, ZILCH! And the icing on the cake? Amari Pooper also drops a goose egg while elsewhere in the league Jordan Howard put up a respectable (but not great) 11.53 points. Papa has already expressed that he regrets this trade. Jordan Howard might not be great, but compared to two players who aren't even worth keeping on a roster, he looks like Todd Gurley now. 7(9). WhatCanBrownsDo4You? (3-3) #DeliverTheDub The team name is a play on the UPS slogan, so it's only right that the hashtag tries to answer the question! And delivering the W is exactly what Browns4You has been doing in recent weeks. Similar to 2016 and 2017, Browns has found himself in a quiet assassin position. No one is really buzzing about this team, but they have put together back-to-back 250-point performances and lost a game in which they scored 234 points, so maybe they should be talked about. In fact, maybe they should be ranked higher than 7th. Go ahead and #DeliverTheDub against Bell of Da Ball and we'll chat. 8(6). Pain Train WOO WOO (4-2) #ChooChoo The disrespect is real. I acknowledge that moving down two spots when you put up the highest score of the week and beat a 3-2 team is a little bit harsh. But again, this league is so crazy that a case can be made for anyone to be ranked 1st and ranked 10th. So far, every single 200+ point performance from Pain Train has been followed by a sub-200 performance. They probably can't afford for that this week against high-scoring RIPDab. 9(10). Bell of Da Ball (2-4) #ForWhomDaBellTolls A hashtag so good they might want to consider changing their team name to their hashtag. But then their old name would be their new hashtag and their new hashtag would be so good I'd suggest changing it back to their team name. Bell is in 10th place, and you know what that means! 10 (8). ma ma momma said (2-4) #KnockYouOut Inspired by the LL COOL J song, momma lived and died by the opening line "don't call it a comeback" because it actually wasn't a comeback on Monday night when they came within a Jason Witten dick length of beating Shotti Bunch with George Kittle. But of course it was Goodwin who came up big, handing momma a Badloss. Matchup of the Week Garoppoblow Me #SuckIt vs. ma ma momma said #KnockHerOut Lifetime Record: MMMS leads 7-3 Important Historical Games: In 2012, MMMS handed GBM a Glory Bowl II loss by defeating them 367-178. Years later, MMMS knocked GBM out of the playoffs again by defeating them 266-221 in the Festival Semifinals on the way to Glory Bowl 5. Since then it's been 2-1 GBM, with the most recent win coming in week 13 last season in a win-and-in game. Momma has waited since December 4th for their revenge, and now it's here. Current Projection: GBM 209.86-219.99 MMS With momma sitting at 2-4, it's too early to call this a do-or-die scenario. That being said, both of these teams need a convincing win. In week 6, GBM was the lowest scoring winner and MMMS was the highest scoring loser. In theory, this bods well for GBM. Typically teams ebb and flow. If you have a monster game one week, players generally cool down the following week. GBM had a terrible game, so maybe guys will come through in week 7. GBM will be out Kupp and Fournette, while MMMS has Doug Baldwin and Geronimo Allison on the bye. It will be interesting to see how Brady performs against the Bears pass rush, and how Jax D rebounds following their worst game of the season.